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The Coming Plague – Laurie Garrett

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The Coming Plague

Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

Laurie Garrett

Genre: Biology

Price: $7.99

Publish Date: October 31, 1994

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Seller: Macmillan


"Here is a volume that should be required reading for policy makers and health professionals." – Kirkus Reviews After four decades of assuming that the conquest of all infectous diseases was imminent, people on all continents now find themselves besieged by AIDS, drug-resistant tuberculosis, cholera that defies chlorine water treatment, and exotic viruses that can kill in a matter of hours. Based on extensive interviews with leading experts in virology, molecular biology, disease ecology and medicine, as well as field research in sub-Saharan Africa, Western Europe, Central America and the United States, The Coming Plague takes readers from the savannas of eastern Bolivia to the rain forests of northern Zaire on a harrowing, fifty year journey through our battles with the microbes, and tells us what must be done to prevent the coming plague.

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The Coming Plague – Laurie Garrett

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Empire Antarctica – Gavin Francis

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Empire Antarctica

Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins

Gavin Francis

Genre: Nature

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: September 16, 2013

Publisher: Counterpoint Press

Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC


“It is difficult to read this engaging memoir without a smile on one’s face . . . moments of sheer joy . . . [a] mesmerizing and memorable book.” — The Economist   Chosen as a Book of the Year by the Scotsman , the Financial Times , and the Sunday Herald Gavin Francis fulfilled a lifetime’s ambition when he spent fourteen months as the basecamp doctor at Halley, a profoundly isolated British research station on the Caird Coast of Antarctica—so remote that it is said to be easier to evacuate a casualty from the International Space Station than it is to bring someone out of Halley in winter.   Antarctica offered a year of unparalleled silence and solitude, with few distractions and a rare opportunity to live among emperor penguins, the only species truly at home in the Antarctic. Following penguins throughout the year—from a summer of perpetual sunshine to months of winter darkness—Francis explores the world of great beauty conjured from the simplest of elements, the hardship of below-zero temperatures and the unexpected comfort that the penguin community brings. Empire Antarctica is the story of one man’s fascination with the world’s loneliest continent, and the emperor penguins who weather the winter with him.   Includes maps and illustrations   “Part travelogue, part memoir, part natural history book, a fascinating, lyrical account of one of the strangest places on earth and its majestic inhabitants.” — Esquire   “Highly readable, enjoyable . . . the author writes vividly of auroras, clouds, stars, sunlight, darkness, ice and snow . . . A literate, stylish memoir of personal adventure rich in history, geography and science.” — Kirkus Reviews

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Empire Antarctica – Gavin Francis

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The Perfect Theory – Pedro G. Ferreira

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The Perfect Theory

A Century of Geniuses and the Battle over General Relativity

Pedro G. Ferreira

Genre: Physics

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: February 4, 2014

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC


“One of the best popular accounts of how Einstein and his followers have been trying to explain the universe for decades ” ( Kirkus Reviews , starred review).   Physicists have been exploring, debating, and questioning the general theory of relativity ever since Albert Einstein first presented it in 1915. This has driven their work to unveil the universe’s surprising secrets even further, and many believe more wonders remain hidden within the theory’s tangle of equations, waiting to be exposed. In this sweeping narrative of science and culture, an astrophysicist brings general relativity to life through the story of the brilliant physicists, mathematicians, and astronomers who have taken up its challenge. For these scientists, the theory has been both a treasure trove and an enigma.   Einstein’s theory, which explains the relationships among gravity, space, and time, is possibly the most perfect intellectual achievement of modern physics—yet studying it has always been a controversial endeavor. Relativists were the target of persecution in Hitler’s Germany, hounded in Stalin’s Russia, and disdained in 1950s America. Even today, PhD students are warned that specializing in general relativity will make them unemployable.   Still, general relativity has flourished, delivering key insights into our understanding of the origin of time and the evolution of all the stars and galaxies in the cosmos. Its adherents have revealed what lies at the farthest reaches of the universe, shed light on the smallest scales of existence, and explained how the fabric of reality emerges. Dark matter, dark energy, black holes, and string theory are all progeny of Einstein’s theory.   In the midst of a momentous transformation in modern physics, as scientists look farther and more clearly into space than ever before, The Perfect Theory exposes the greater relevance of general relativity, showing us where it started, where it has led—and where it can still take us.  

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The Perfect Theory – Pedro G. Ferreira

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Through a Window – Jane Goodall

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Through a Window
My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe
Jane Goodall

Genre: Life Sciences

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: April 7, 2010

Publisher: Mariner Books

Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC


The renowned British primatologist continues the “engrossing account” of her time among the chimpanzees of Gombe, Tanzania ( Publishers Weekly ).   In her classic, In the Shadow of Man , Jane Goodall wrote of her first ten years at Gombe. In Through a Window she continues the story, painting a more complete and vivid portrait of our closest relatives.   On the shores of Lake Tanganyika, Gombe is a community where the principal residents are chimpanzees. Through Goodall’s eyes we watch young Figan’s relentless rise to power and old Mike’s crushing defeat. We learn how one mother rears her children to succeed and another dooms hers to failure. We witness horrifying murders, touching moments of affection, joyous births, and wrenching deaths.   As Goodall compellingly tells the story of this intimately intertwined community, we are shown human emotions stripped to their essence. In the mirror of chimpanzee life, we see ourselves reflected.   “A humbling and exalting book . . . Ranks with the great scientific achievements of the twentieth century.” — The Washington Post     “[An] absolutely smashing account . . . Thrilling, affectionate, intelligent—a classic.” — Kirkus Reviews , starred review

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Through a Window – Jane Goodall

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A Country Year – Sue Hubbell

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A Country Year

Living the Questions

Sue Hubbell

Genre: Nature

Price: $11.99

Publish Date: January 24, 2017

Publisher: Open Road Media

Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC


A “delightful, witty” memoir about starting over as a beekeeper in the Ozarks ( Library Journal ).   Alone on a small Missouri farm after a thirty-year marriage, Sue Hubbell found a new love—of the winged, buzzing variety. Left with little but the commercial beekeeping and honey-producing business she started with her husband, Hubbell found solace in the natural world. Then she began to write, challenging herself to tell the absolute truth about her life and the things she cared about.   Describing the ups and downs of beekeeping from one springtime to the next, A Country Year transports readers to a different, simpler place. In a series of exquisite vignettes, Hubbell reveals the joys of a life attuned to nature in this heartfelt memoir about life on the land, and of a woman finding her way in middle age.   “Once in a while there comes along a book so calm, so honest, so beautiful that even the most jaded or cynical readers have to say thank you. . . . This is such a book” ( The San Diego Union-Tribune ). “Steadily eloquent, not just of her life but of all life.” — The Washington Post   “Oh, my, can this lady write.” — Sports Illustrated   “A calm, clear-eyed record of a country year and its beauties.” — Los Angeles Times   “Sue Hubbell’s writing is like butter, for it tantalizes, enriches and satisfies.” — The Atlanta-Journal Constitution   “[Hubbell’s] delightful, witty book will appeal to all those who are intrigued by the natural world.” — Library Journal   “This is a book one wants to quote from beginning to end. . . . Stirring—and more richly alive than any PBS nature film.” — Kirkus Reviews Sue Hubbell is the author of eight books, including A Country Year and New York Times Notable Book A Book of Bees . She has written for the New Yorker , the St. Louis Post-Dispatch , Smithsonian , and Time , and was a frequent contributor to the “Hers” column of the New York Times . Hubbell lives in Maine and Washington, DC.

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A Country Year – Sue Hubbell

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Geekspeak – Graham Tattersall

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Geekspeak

Why Life + Mathematics = Happiness

Graham Tattersall

Genre: Science & Nature

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: October 15, 2007

Publisher: Fourth Estate

Seller: HarperCollins


The quirky offspring of ‘QI’ and ‘Freakonomics’, ‘Geekspeak’ melds ingenious statistical analysis with edifying trivia to explain away some curious facts of life. Curiosity is our human birthright, and destiny. As a species we are to prone to think, ruminate, reflect, cogitate, deliberate and philosophise. We do all these things, and why? To explain away the world around us, to find solace in knowledge, to answer all those seeming unanswerables: why are we here? Is there a God? Is there life after death? How many slaves on treadmills does it take to power my kettle? Yes, forget the Bible, ‘Geekspeak’ is the new oracle for 21st century living. Graham Tattersall, a confirmed and superior geek, has rescued maths from the prison of the classroom, imbued it with fresh new life, and put it to use in novel and unexpected ways. His ingenious, deceptively simple formula melds statistical analysis with personal experience and enlightening trivia to explain away some curious and oft-pondered mysteries of the world: how big is your vocabulary, how heavy is your house, do the dead outnumber the living, how powerful is a fly, how fast is a fart. With its recipe of sophisticated mathematical techniques, witty anecdotes and startling amount of learning, ‘Geekspeak’ is an essential tool for impressing friends, sounding intelligent and better understanding the fascinating world in which we live. Maths has a new champion, and the Geeks a new King. Reviews ‘It will give you the means of finding out all sorts of information that you don't actually need to know. Curiously, I found it all quite interesting. Does that mean that I am a geek?’ Church Review About the author Dr Graham Tattersall is a freelance engineer working on projects as diverse as computer aided shoe fitting, fault analysis systems for trains, and enhancement of ultrasound images. He enjoys building houses, boats and working on engines, and lives in Suffolk with his (long suffering) wife.

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Geekspeak – Graham Tattersall

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5 Strategies to Choose the Right Solar Panel Installer

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As solar energy explodes in popularity, there are more solar installation crews mounting solar panels on rooftops and tinkering with home electrical panels. Having the right solar panel installer can really make or break the experience of going solar.

When improperly installed, roof leaks are one of the most common complaints from solar homeowners. By contrast, solar systems can be installed in ways that don’t void roof warranties and actually help protect the roof from the elements. I’ve seen homes where the solar panels protected the roof from hail damage and the panels remain unscathed.

The technical expertise, solar equipment quality and solar system warranties all vary widely by the installer. The good news is that there are many reputable solar installation companies across the country to choose from. Here are some things to look for when finding the winners.

Some solar panel installers are more experienced than others. Photo: Shutterstock

1. NABCEP-Certification Installer

The North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners certifies energy installers, including solar PV technicians. The requirements include passing a written test and having a certain amount of solar installation field experience. Although certification doesn’t guarantee good workmanship, it does ensure a certain level of knowledge and experience. Ideally, your solar installation will be overseen by a NABCEP-certified professional or, even better, have a NABCEP-certified crew member on the job.

2. Good Company Reputation

When looking for a solar panel installer, find one with a successful track record. If you have friends and acquaintances with a solar system, find out if they were happy with their installer.

Online consumer reviews are another way to find out more about a company. Solar Reviews is a useful source of information on solar installers and equipment, based on consumer reviews.

It’s also good to find out if the solar installer outsources its labor. If so, the quality of the installation might be less predictable.

3. Ideal Solar Equipment Options

In most areas, there are at least two reputable solar companies to choose from. Getting multiple bids can improve the quality of the finished product and possibly the out-of-pocket cost. For example, some installers take a one-size-fits-all approach to solar system design, while another company might customize your installation based on your needs, goals and the property. If installing your solar system is more complicated, it is especially helpful to find an installer that customizes your solar system design by selecting the best equipment and installation approach.

For help comparing options, EnergySage is funded by the Department of Energy and provides a suite of online tools and resources that assist consumers in researching and shopping for solar. Another service, UnderstandSolar, links solar shoppers to top-rated solar installers for personalized solar estimates. Various installers commonly offer different technology options to their customers. Perhaps you are willing to splurge on some sleek solar panels because they have such a long warranty or you want an inverter with backup power supply when the grid is down. By speaking with different solar panel installers, you can familiarize yourself with the different equipment choices.

4. Comprehensive Solar System Warranty

Various solar equipment comes with different manufacturer warranties, and installers often guarantee their work as well. Because solar is a pretty hefty investment, it is wise to protect yourself with a warranty.

Workmanship warranties can vary widely between installers but often last between one to 10 years. The solar equipment has additional warranties that are provided by the manufacturer. Solar panels typically have an equipment guarantee for a certain length of time in addition to a power performance guarantee for energy production. Other components, such as the inverter, can have very short warranties of just a few years or ones that last 25 years. Make sure you are clear about warranties before signing a contract with a solar panel installer.

5. Turnaround Time

Because solar energy has exploded in popularity in recent years, many solar installers have jam-packed installation schedules for months. If you want a solar system installed soon, it is wise to ask what their schedule looks like before signing a contract.

Keep in mind that the timing of when the solar system is installed impacts the availability of the 30 percent federal tax credit. For example, if you install a solar system in February, you need to wait much longer to use the tax credit than if you installed the system in November.

Feature image courtesy of Shutterstock

Read More:
5 Solar Energy Trends for the Year Ahead
11 Ways to Use Solar Energy Besides the Home
4 Reasons the Cost of Solar Energy Keeps Falling

5 Strategies to Choose the Right Solar Panel Installer

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5 Strategies to Choose the Right Solar Panel Installer

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Gifts of an Eagle – Kent Durden

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Gifts of an Eagle

The Remarkable Story of a Bird and Her Family

Kent Durden

Genre: Nature

Price: $7.99

Publish Date: September 11, 2012

Publisher: Open Road Media

Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC


New York Times Bestseller: The “extraordinary” true story of a golden eagle adopted by a California ranching family, and how she changed their lives (Delia Ephron). In 1955, Ed Durden brought a baby golden eagle home to his ranch in California, where she would stay for the next sixteen years. As her bond with Ed and the Durden family grew, the eagle, named Lady, displayed a fierce intelligence and strong personality. She learned quickly, had a strong mothering instinct (even for other species), and never stopped surprising those who cared for her. An eight-week New York Times bestseller, Gifts of an Eagle is a fascinating up-close look at one of the most majestic creatures in nature, as well as a heartwarming family story and “an affectionate, unsentimental tribute” ( Kirkus Reviews ). “Superb . . . an outstanding story of one of the grandest creatures of nature, written with rare knowledge and understanding of the subject. It combines keen observation with a remarkable intimate relationship, so seldom found in studies of wild creatures. It should become a ‘classic.’” —Joy Adamson, author of Born Free  “A glad adventure into the fierce free world behind those golden eyes. Mr. Durden has found a way to hand us the friendship of a proud creature, and that’s a gift rarely given . . .” —Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull Kent Durden (1937–2007) was a wildlife photographer, documentarian, and writer best known for his acclaimed book Gifts of an Eagle (1972), an account of his family’s sixteen years caring for a golden eagle named Lady. In a column for the Wall Street Journal ,Delia Ephron named the memoir among the five greatest books about animals. Durden also wrote the novel Flight to Freedom (1974) and the memoir A Fine and Peaceful Kingdom (1975). A native of Southern California, Durden toured with the Audubon Society for many years, giving lectures and screening his film about Lady, which included original footage of many of the events from the book. It is available at giftsofaneagle.com. His daughter, Krissy Durden, lives in Portland, Oregon, and contributed a new foreword to Open Road’s edition of Gifts of an Eagle .

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Gifts of an Eagle – Kent Durden

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The Invention of Nature – Andrea Wulf

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The Invention of Nature

Alexander von Humboldt’s New World

Andrea Wulf

Genre: Nature

Price: $12.99

Publish Date: September 15, 2015

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


The acclaimed author of Founding Gardeners reveals the forgotten life of Alexander von Humboldt, the visionary German naturalist whose ideas changed the way we see the natural world—and in the process created modern environmentalism. NATIONAL BEST SELLER One of the  New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, The James Wright Award for Nature Writing, the  Costa Biography Award, the Royal Geographic Society's Ness Award, the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award Finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, the  Kirkus  Prize Prize for Nonfiction, the Independent Bookshop Week Book Award A   Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Economist ,  Nature ,  Jezebel ,  Kirkus Reviews ,  Publishers Weekly ,  New Scientist ,  The Independent ,  The Telegraph ,  The Sunday Times, The Evening Standard, The Spectator Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) was an intrepid explorer and the most famous scientist of his age. In North America, his name still graces four counties, thirteen towns, a river, parks, bays, lakes, and mountains. His restless life was packed with adventure and discovery, whether he was climbing the highest volcanoes in the world or racing through anthrax-infected Siberia or translating his research into bestselling publications that changed science and thinking. Among Humboldt’s most revolutionary ideas was a radical vision of nature, that it is a complex and interconnected global force that does not exist for the use of humankind alone. Now Andrea Wulf brings the man and his achievements back into focus: his daring expeditions and investigation of wild environments around the world and his discoveries of similarities between climate and vegetation zones on different continents. She also discusses his prediction of human-induced climate change, his remarkable ability to fashion poetic narrative out of scientific observation, and his relationships with iconic figures such as Simón Bolívar and Thomas Jefferson. Wulf examines how Humboldt’s writings inspired other naturalists and poets such as Darwin, Wordsworth, and Goethe, and she makes the compelling case that it was Humboldt’s influence that led John Muir to his ideas of natural preservation and that shaped Thoreau’s Walden . With this brilliantly researched and compellingly written book, Andrea Wulf shows the myriad fundamental ways in which Humboldt created our understanding of the natural world, and she champions a renewed interest in this vital and lost player in environmental history and science. From the Hardcover edition.

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The Invention of Nature – Andrea Wulf

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A surprising link between superintelligent robots, global warming, and mass extinction? Nope, not really

A surprising link between superintelligent robots, global warming, and mass extinction? Nope, not really

By on 9 Sep 2015commentsShare

Hold on to your tinfoil hats, folks: Robots are taking over the world after climate change forces global mass extinction. Or, rather, with enough conjecture, coincidence, and frivolous shoehorning, you too could wring that argument out of a new paper by researchers at the IT University of Copenhagen and the University of Texas–Austin. If that’s what you wanted to do with your afternoon.

But you don’t need to — that’s what The Washington Post is for:

We’ve already heard of all the nasty consequences that could occur if the pace of global climate change doesn’t abate by the year 2050 — we could see wars over water, massive food scarcity, and the extinction of once populous species. Now add to the mix a potentially new wrinkle on the abrupt and irreversible changes – superintelligent robots would be just about ready to take over from humanity in the event of any mass extinction event impacting the planet.

In fact, according to a mind-blowing research paper published in mid-August by computer science researchers Joel Lehman and Risto Miikkulainen, robots would quickly evolve in the event of any mass extinction (defined as the loss of at least 75 percent of the species on the planet), something that’s already happened five times before in the past.

In a survival of the fittest contest in which humans and robots start at zero (which is what we’re really talking about with a mass extinction event), robots would win every time. That’s because humans evolve linearly, while superintelligent robots would evolve exponentially. Simple math.

Woahhh, boy. Easy. Have a sugar cube.

Climate change is bad, bad, bad news bears. But it’s probably not going to wipe out all the people. Don’t get me wrong: Rising sea levels, security threat multipliers, Peabody is the devil, keep it in the ground, carbon fee and dividend, etc., etc. But implying mass human extinction due to a warming climate is counter-productive in a country in which half the political populace suggests the threat is overblown.

Side note: Even if we did “start at zero,” presumably that would imply actually starting at zero. As in, no humans and no robots. In which case you can exponentiate zero until the robocows come home, and you’ll still be left with an arithmetic donut. Mother Earth wins every time — the deserts, the oceans, the bacteria — not the ‘bots. End side note.

There’s a lot going on in Lehman and Miikkulainen’s paper, but none of it is about climate change. (Dominic Basulto, the author of the WaPo piece, acknowledges as much.) The study itself is a relatively straightforward piece of computer science: Dump some biologically inspired learning algorithms into a population of simulated robots, tack on an evolution-mimicking step, kill off a bunch of digital bots (that’s the mass extinction), and see what happens. The researchers demonstrate that after unplugging a good chunk of the robots, “evolvability” accelerates; that is, the extent to which and the rate at which the digibots are able to fill abandoned niches increase. It’s an interesting result, and one that warrants discussion in the context of biological evolution.

But back to climate change, mass extinction, and the coming robopocalypse. Let’s assume “start at zero” means “start at roughly equal numbers of robots and humans, who are at roughly equal levels of intelligence, and who are more or less randomly geographically distributed, and then inexplicably normalize this undoubtedly high-dimensional description of the scenario to ‘zero’.” (Forget the difficulties of meaningfully quantifying intelligence and consciousness.) There are a handful of robots and a handful of humans. It’s basically Burning Man out there. Then, the argument goes, the robots really take off:

Think about it — robots don’t need water and they don’t need food — all they need is a power source and a way to constantly refine the algorithms they use to make sense of the world around them. If they figure out how to stay powered up after severe and irreversible climate change impacts – perhaps by powering up with solar power as they did in the Hollywood film “Transcendence” — robots could quickly prove to be “fitter” than humans in responding to any mass extinction event.

They also might just sit around and rust in the sun. What’s motivating them to survive? Part of the problem here is that we also don’t really know what “evolvability” is. A 2008 review in Nature Reviews Genetics by Massimo Pigliucci states that, traditionally, “the term has been used to refer to different, if partly overlapping, phenomena.” It’s also unclear whether or not an organism can actually evolve evolvability.

Setting those difficulties aside, in assessing the Robo-Climate Wars scenario, we’re still left poking at the unparalleled uncertainty that hovers around the Singularity — the term used to describe the moment at which runaway artificial intelligence surpasses that of mankind. Some researchers argue the moment could come within the next ten years. Others say it won’t be less than a hundred (if ever). Basulto’s argument in The Washington Post rests on the temporal convergence of a climate-change-induced mass extinction and the dawn of superintelligence. Which seems a tad unlikely. And even if you buy, say, 2050 as an extinction date and as the hockey stick uptick for the Singularity, we’re still left with the assumption that human evolution and robot evolution will somehow be qualitatively and quantitatively different from one another. Which should give us pause.

While Basulto writes that “humans evolve linearly,” that idea is not at all settled in the evolutionary biology community. (Nor is “linear evolution” particularly well-defined in the first place. Linear? By what metric?) Some futurists argue — and it’s mostly futurists having these conversations — that as soon as we’ve developed robots capable of superintelligence (which ostensibly implies nonlinear evolution) we’ll have cracked the code of our own brains. In which case the same argument that applies to the robots in Lehman and Miikkulainen’s paper will apply to us, too, and we should spend more time worrying about climate change and less time worrying about the rise of our robot overlords.

Besides, by 2045, we’re supposed to be able to upload our brains to achieve immortality. As long as we’re cherry-picking futurist tidbits, we might as well cling to that one.

Source:

Extinction Events Can Accelerate Evolution

, PLOS One.

The strange link between global climate change and the rise of the robots

, The Washington Post.

How mass extinctions can accelerate robot evolution

, Kurzweil AI.

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A surprising link between superintelligent robots, global warming, and mass extinction? Nope, not really

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